Day 5 – Katha & Tigyang

Another day, another beautiful sunrise.

This morning we were staying put and doing an official “tour” of Katha.

As we disembarked the boat, the staff and crew lined both sides of the stairs greeting us with smiles,  “min ga la bar” (hello in Burmese) and “watch your step”.

Our walking tour took us in the opposite direction of our walk the night before – that was lucky!  Our first stop was a teak furniture workshop that spilled out onto the street.

These beautiful carved elephants were made of Iron Wood, not teak, so they were very heavy.

You don’t see this at home!

Bicycles are a favourite mode of transportation here…

More smiles from the people…

Notice the safety equipment (or should I say the lack of)?  I think he had flip flops on as well…

I love how they arrange the betel leaves in perfect circles – it takes some time to display them like this!

And there were many baskets of them…

The Burmese lottery (aung bar lay – translates to “may you win”) is the only legal form of gambling in the country.  The tickets are displayed like this everywhere, enticing people to buy the winning numbers.

Dried fish anyone?

George Orwell was a pen name for Eric Blair, an officer in the Indian Imperial Police from 1922 to 1927.  He was posted in several different locations in Myanmar (then Burma); one of those places was Katha which became the inspiration for his 1934 novel “Burmese Days”.   This is the house that he lived in while in Katha; it now houses the local police.

There are chickens, chicks and roosters everywhere…

While we were at Orwell’s former home there was a shoot out!

A statue of General Aung San, considered to be the father of modern-day Myanmar and a national hero, sits in the middle of a traffic circle in Katha.

Colourful shops with beautiful teak lounge chairs, and yes, those are santa pillows.

Judging buy the number of bikes outside, this must be a very popular tea shop.

We also visited the former “British Club” which is featured in “Burmese Days”.  No longer a club, the building is now used as an office…

This family of dogs was in behind the British Club.  Rabies is prevalent in Myanmar and many dogs are skittish of people, so no matter how cute the puppies are, you can’t touch them or play with them.  It was hard, really, really hard!

One of the pups took quite a liking to Saw…

I think this was a repair shop…

We toured through the market, from which the locals buy their meat, fish, veggies and even clothing.  The chicken is treated with turmeric to preserve it; I still wouldn’t be brave enough to try it, but it was pretty warm and the meat didn’t smell bad…

This woman was weighing out some fish for a customer…

The clothes that these merchants are selling are used clothes that come from China packed in huge cubes.  They open the cubes, empty the clothes into piles and display some, but not all, of them; there were people rooting through the piles looking for that perfect item.

Apparently plaid shirts are popular everywhere…

This is a spicy fermented fish paste – it has chilis in it.

After our walk through the market, we headed up into the hills behind town to a local Jingpo village.  The Jingpo are one of several hundred ethnic minority groups in Myanmar and this is their traditional dress.

The Jingpo also use rice to make beer and liquor.  This was their “still” for making rice liquor.  We had the opportunity to try some, it was high test – think moonshine…

Back at the river, we boarded the ship and said goodbye to Katha…

The view from the outdoor lounge area at the front of the boat never disappointed…

The Irrawaddy is a very busy river, a lot of goods are moved on it.  Interestingly, there are no big boats.  All the goods are put on barges and the barges are pushed by tugboats.  As we were leaving Katha you could see the barges and tugs waiting to load up.

Our destination for the afternoon was Tigyang, a small hillside village with a reclining buddha.

As with the other villages, the river is the local laundry and bath.

This was a big beautiful tree providing plenty of shade for the people…

A big pile of firewood was under the tree, some of which they brought to our boat for an upcoming bonfire!

We did a bit of a walk through town to the start of the stairs up to the reclining buddha.

Many people put food out in these containers for the monks if they aren’t going to be home when they come by.  Two young monks were returning the containers to the appropriate homes.

The kids, as always, watched intently as the strange people walked through town.

Some of the group took the stairs up to the Buddha figure, some of us hopped in vans and drove up.  Oddly enough, the walkers got there before we did.  What a ride that was!

At the top was the reclining buddha and it wasn’t covered in bamboo scaffolding!

The next picture is to show you the size of the buddha figure – Myo is 5′ 2″, making the feet about 10 feet high!

This reclining buddha is different, you could actually go inside, which we did.  Inside, at the head, was a small shrine.  Frankly it was a little weird…

The views of the river from the hilltop were beautiful…

Back at the river, a group of young monks were enjoying some fresh sugar cane.

Just south of Tigyang is a very long bridge across the river.  It’s pretty new and is one of the longest over the Irrawaddy.

Passing under the bridge…

To move the teak and bamboo on the river, they raft the logs together and move them with a small boat.  It takes weeks, so the people literally camp on the raft as it moves up the river.  I believe this one was teak.

In the late afternoon, the setting sun casts a beautiful light on everything…

We dropped anchor in the river and enjoyed another beautiful sunset on the Irrawaddy.

And as the sun set, the moon rose and another day came to an end.